Title: Earthquake Fandom: The Fantastic Journey Author: badly_knitted Characters: Fred, Scott, Travellers, Varian. Rating: PG Setting: An Act of Love. Summary: The travellers are trapped in a cave beneath a mountain, and Varian is missing. Word Count: 300 Content Notes: Nada. Written For: Challenge 501: Amnesty 83, using Challenge 62: Trapped. Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators. A/N: Triple drabble.
OAKLAND — A 49-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole until after 40 years.
Redman Collins, of Oakland, was convicted earlier this year of second-degree murder and a gun enhancement. On Dec. 9, Judge Delia Trevino sentenced him to 40-years-to-life behind bars, records show. He remains at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin for now, pending transfer to the state prison system.
Jurors found that Collins shot and killed 31-year-old Antwan Runnels on the morning of Oct. 12, 2022, near Lafayette Square Park in Old Oakland. Prosecutors argued at trial that Collins and his nephew arranged to meet Runnels that day for a marijuana deal, which Runnels and the nephew had done several times before.
But Collins’ presence that day was a surprise, authorities said. Runnels angrily objected to him being there, and Collins’ nephew attempted to assure him that everything would be fine, according to authorities. A few seconds later, Runnels shoved Collins’ nephew and Collins responded by shooting Runnels, prosecutors said.
Collins gets credit for the time he spent behind bars while the case was pending, court records show.
San Jose approved permits last week for a mid-rise housing project near the city’s western border with Cupertino that will add more than 100 apartments once construction is completed.
Borello Asset Management had initially submitted an application under the Builder’s Remedy process in 2023, aiming to transform the .72-acre lot at 1000 S. De Anza Blvd. into a seven-story, 118-unit complex. To make way for the housing project, the developer will demolish a 2,658-square-foot commercial building that was once home to Mori Kitchen, which closed in 2023.
“The current use of the property — a single-story commercial building currently vacant, surrounded by a sea of paved parking — (is) an inefficient use of land that does not benefit anybody,” said Erik Schoennauer, a land-use consultant representing the developer. “Redeveloping the property makes sense for the neighborhood and for the city. The proposed multi-family apartment building is consistent with the pattern of development throughout the city’s urban village areas and along the major commercial corridors.”
This allowed the developer to take advantage of the Builder’s Remedy process, which locks in any policies, ordinances, fees, and standards in effect at the time the application was submitted. It also forced city staff to evaluate the project as if it met the General Plan land-use designation and the zoning district’s requirements. The only way a local government could reject an eligible Builder’s Remedy project was if it could show a specific, adverse impact on public health and safety.
City project manager Alec Atienza said the project site was in a zoning district that would not allow housing unless it was 100% deed-restricted, affordable, or the applicant used another state law to allow development.
San Jose has approved permits for a seven-story housing complex at 1000 S. De Anza Blvd. The complex includes 118 units, including 24 that will be available at below market-rate rent. (Google Maps)
The complex will include 44 studios, 42 one-bedroom apartments and 32 two-bedroom apartments.
Twenty-four of the units will be available at 80% of the area’s median income. In 2025, the area median income for a single person was $136,650.
An environmental impact report completed in the summer estimated that construction could begin in early 2026, with the project taking about 14 months to complete.
The project received some pushback from residents, who expressed concerns about construction noise and vibration affecting nearby homes.
“If the ground sinks or settles due to excessive vibrations or from the activity of lots of heavy equipment and machinery, the integrity of the post-tension slab at Ventana could be compromised, leading to potential catastrophic structural failures,” Ventana Place Homeowners Association President Becky Bender said. “The ramifications would not only endanger the lives of Ventana Place residents, but also result in astronomical, multi-million dollar repair costs that may not even fully restore the structure.”
Bender also requested, to no avail, that the developer scale down the project to fit the character of the existing neighborhood.
Schoennauer addressed the construction concerns, noting that the environmental report included requirements to limit noise impacts and stating that it was implausible that the construction vibrations would affect the townhome buildings.
While Borello’s project will stick out a little more than the existing buildings, Schoennauer said, the city’s General Plan intended for more intense use along commercial corridors in the long run.
“The city’s plan is that a street like De Anza will be all seven stories someday,” Schoennauer said. “That’s the plan adopted by the City Council for decades, so our project, just because it’s one of the earliest ones, is not out of place.”
Garland Rabon, 30, argued in court for a five-year probation term. He was sentenced Dec. 15 by U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, who gave Rabon time to enjoy the holiday season with his family. He won’t have to report to prison until May 2026.
The robberies occurred in 2022, reaping close to $1 million in cash, jewels and other valuables. The year was capped off by a surprise birthday party for one of the crew members in December 2022, where the defendants flaunted stolen jewelry for a video camera and talked about their newfound riches. Video of the party was later seized by prosecutors and used as evidence to argue for lengthy prison sentences.
In court, prosecutors argued that Rabon was a longtime, dedicated member of the Ghost Town gang — a violent group that has existed in West Oakland for decades — and that he committed his crimes while serving as a “youth mentor” through a program funded by the city of Oakland. The defense argued that he expressed “true remorse” and that his crimes were “mistakes caused by a lifetime of trauma and drug addiction.”
Rabon described his life in a letter to the court, listing times he lost loved ones, went through financial hardships and eventually came to have a new perspective in life.
“Throughout the year and half my case was pending, I spent more time with my kids than I ever had before, and attended drug and mental counseling for the first time in my life,” Rabon wrote. “I am a changed person and never want to return to the life I previously lived.”
The tragedies Rabon endured include the loss of his 17-year-old brother, Deshawn Rabon, who was killed when a car he was riding in collided with a funeral home in 2015. A defense sentencing memo includes a picture where Garland Rabon poses alongside Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, holding up two certificates her earned through participation in anti-violence programs this year.
Prosecutors argued that Rabon’s role as a getaway driver “made the rapid takeover and speedy departure possible,” during one of the robberies and that he pledged his loyalty to the Ghost Town gang on Instagram with a post that said: “Til death do us apart / I’m with the gang / I took my vows.”
The robberies included a March 2022 incident where a coin store owner in San Francisco lost an estimated $300,000 and a November 2022 stickup that cost a San Pablo jeweler estimated losses of up to $500,000. There was also an August 2022 robbery, targeting an Oakland cannabis dispensary, with a business loss estimated at $100,000.
It's gift card season and there are a couple sorts of books I would like to get with mine, but I don't even know what sorts of terms to start searching on.
1) Something about different legal systems and the philosophies that go with them. How they shape how people think about what the law is even for, and so forth. Would prefer to focus on modern systems, but historical examples are fine if they help illuminate the present. (E.g. I have come across mentions a few times that things work in such and such a way in France or its former colonies because they were shaped by the Napoleonic code.)
2) How the governments of really huge cities/metropoles work.
Blogs or newsletters are okay too. But no podcasts or YouTube series unless they're scripted, please.
The end to a wild week of whipsawing weather across Northern California is at hand.
Sunny skies, calmer winds and cooler temperatures are forecast to return to the Bay Area on Saturday and linger into early next week, offering a respite from a weeklong parade of storms that felled trees, flooded roadways and caused power outages affecting thousands of people.
In the Sierra, clouds were expected to part beginning Saturday, potentially allowing skiers easier access over Interstate 80 and Highway 50 to take advantage of several feet of fresh powder around Lake Tahoe.
A few final rounds of rain and gusty conditions were expected throughout the day Friday, particularly around midday and into the early afternoon as a final band of storms sweep through the region.
But in a word, the weather should be “beautiful” for the last several days of 2025, said Dylan Flynn, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
“The sun will be shining, the wind will be light — it’s going to be really nice,” Flynn said. The only potential drawback will be cooler temperatures that could dip overnight into the 30s for parts of the Bay Area, making it “noticeable, especially compared to how warm it’s been,” he added.
The calmer forecast comes after a drumbeat of storms pummeled the Bay Area, bringing with them hurricane-force gusts that toppled trees and left many residents celebrating Christmas in the dark.
Several thousand people were without power Friday morning, the vast majority in the Santa Cruz Mountains, along with other parts of the Peninsula and in the South Bay, according to Pacific Gas & Electric’s outage map. In all, the storms this week knocked out power to more than 777,000 people across PG&E’s California network, said Paul Moreno, a spokesman for the utility provider.
As of 10:45 a.m., more than 8,700 customers remained without power in the Bay Area, with nearly 5,000 of them being in the North Bay, PG&E reported. Another nearly 2,400 were without power in the Peninsula.
A blown transformer during the storm Wednesday evening forced the closure of two of the four bores of the Caldecott Tunnel connecting Alameda and Contra Costa counties on Highway 24. A Caltrans spokesperson said Friday afternoon that they hoped to re-open both bores by late Friday.
Overnight Thursday into Friday, the weather service received reports of downed trees affecting Highway 152 and several boats damaged in the Santa Cruz Harbor from more bands of storms that rolled through the area.
Radar indicated a possible water spout in Monterey Bay, just outside of Santa Cruz, on Christmas Day, Flynn said, though it was not immediately clear whether it came ashore and caused any damage. The weather service also issued a tornado warning over the Santa Cruz Mountains later in the day, though it later appeared unlikely that anything touched down. Formal survey teams had not yet been dispatched at midday Friday.
Perhaps the greatest damage to emerge late this week came at the Lick Observatory atop Mt. Hamilton, where gusts of up to 114 mph on Christmas Day ripped open the shutter to the 36-inch Great Refractor dome, the observatory announced Friday. The dislodged shutter, which weighs more than two tons, “fell outward onto the roof of the Great Hall, crushing several structural beams,” the announcement said.
A sign reading “visitor center closed” is up on Mount Hamilton, Calif., on Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
The telescope itself — which was the world’s largest when it opened in 1888 — was not damaged. Yet repairs to the facility are expected to take months, particularly with the added complication of the telescope’s precision lenses and electrical systems now being “vulnerable” to precipitation, observatory officials said.
“It’s hard to imagine a structure that solid and large failing in such a way — it was just mind-boggling,” said Elinor Gates, senior resident staff astronomer at Mt. Hamilton. The damage will limit public access to the facility for the foreseeable future, she added, stressing that “we want to make sure it’s safe before we let anyone up to the main building and visitors center.”
In all, since the first storms came ashore last weekend, Oakland and San Francisco have received more than 4 inches of rain, while the Oakland and Berkeley hills — along with the Santa Cruz Mountains to the southwest — received between 5 and 8 inches of precipitation, the weather service reported. San Jose received about 1.75 inches of rain, while similar totals were measured in Mountain View and Palo Alto and slightly more than 2 inches fell over Fremont.
A man plays the community piano along Ocean Beach as storm clouds are seen in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
The highest totals came in the North Bay, where Mt. Tamalpais received 15.11 inches of rain over the last week, according to the weather service. More than 6 inches fell in Tiburon and Fairfax.
To the east, snow continued to fall over the Sierra, providing a direly-needed lift to Lake Tahoe-area ski resorts that had delayed their openings amid an unseasonably dry start to the season.
Several ski resorts reported another two feet of powder from early Christmas morning to just before dawn on Friday, according to Scott Rowe, another National Weather Service meteorologist. That latest dumping left Soda Springs with 72 inches of snow so far this week, while Kirkwood reported 59 inches of powder, and Bear Valley said it had received 58 inches of snow.
Borreal reported 47 inches of snow for the week as of early Friday morning, while 58 inches of snow had fallen at the summit of Palisades Tahoe.
Accessing those ski resorts remained difficult Friday. Caltrans continued to enforce chain controls over Interstate 80 over Donner Pass and Highway 50 over Echo Summit. Still, the new solid base layer of snow was a welcome sight.
Just a week ago, on Dec. 19, California’s statewide snowpack was at 12% of its seasonal average, with the state’s northern-most peaks registering just 4% of its normal snowpack total for that date, according to the California Department of Water Resources. Central California — including much of the Lake Tahoe region — also was at just 12% of average.
But as Friday, the state stood at 69% of its snowpack average for the day after Christmas, with northern California coming in at 44% of average and the Central Sierra reaching 73%. More snow was expected to continue falling Friday before easing off this weekend.
“We’ll take any snow at this point in time,” Scott said.
Clouds blow past a tree at Joseph D. Grant County Park in Mt. Hamilton, Calif., on Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.
It’s the final collection of new books and ARCs for 2025, and this one is a double decker! What here is something you would want to take with you into the new year? Share in the comments!
+ I was going to do my yearly 5 icon slots as a gift to myself, and it turns out 550 is a hard limit and I can't have any more. No fair. I got DW money some other way but boo.
+ Fallout is apparently back! I watched both episodes yesterday and enjoyed them. We're getting more zany vault culture and I'm here for it. Also a delightful actor appearance, big plus there.
+ Absolutely fell behind on rec_cember. My brain has been Tired from being social every day. I do have a few more planned, fingers crossed they actually happen?
+ Christmas Eve was an absolute success. The food was lovely, everyone was healthy and in good spirits, and since there were no kids we took our time and opened one package at a time. I finally have a working vacuum again \o/ A foldable foot bath, and a ginger preserve I'm quite excited to try out. Some creams, tea, and a gift card for RITUALS. All useful things.
+ Joined my brother in picking up my dad from the airport earlier. Now to figure out what will happen for my birthday, then my friend's birthday the day after, and THEN New Year's. I'd like a nap tbh.
I've made this post a number of times without any luck, but I wanted to try again just in case I have better luck this time. Would anyone be interested in any of the following Nintendo Switch games?
- that you could prop up a tabletop rigid heddle loom between your legs and the table's edge. Sure, but perhaps not this one, which is palm-sized.
- that you need multiple shafts to weave certain motifs. It's like saying that you need a bed frame, boxspring, and foam mattress for sleeping, or chairs with rigid frames and a table of a certain height for eating a meal. You might like having them, you might consider them status markers, your cultural expectations may've blocked off other options, but one does not need them in an absolute sense.
(If her setup goes too fast in that video, try her basic setup howto. It shows the interim uses of lease sticks and which things are tied provisionally, then undone. What she does is unfamiliar to me but looks much like the setup used by a Kazakh weaver whose reels Instagram keeps tossing my way---a Kazakh weaver who's a quarter ethnic Korean by heritage, part of the Koryo-saram community. Coincidence? I've no idea.)
- that you need multiple shafts, part two: here's someone with Atelier Fagelbo (Japan) weaving basic houndstooth with a rigid heddle on a tabletop/box loom. They don't show how to dress the loom because they'd like you to buy the loom and their many photo pages of directions (no thanks), but it is proof of concept.
- that you mustn't fuss with the warp (except to repair a broken warp thread) once a loom has been dressed and weaving has begun. I've undone the basic knotted warp from the large 8-dent heddle that shipped with my 10" Beka beginner frame, rethreaded the warp through a heddle with the right size of reed (12 dent), and added a few weft rows to what was provided by Beka staff. Much better. The original plan was to use someone else's warp and not only learn but save my hands. An 8-dent heddle with what looks like #4 or #8 cotton is pretty clunky. (#10 cotton, only slightly thinner, is "bedspread cotton" for mid-C20 crochet patterns.)
Nominations will remain open until 11:59 PM EST on December 27. Here's a countdown clock.
Questions
1. The following nominations were submitted under Assassination Classroom but were all disambiguated with the names of other fandoms. I’ve rejected them for now, but I can add them back if the nominator(s) let me know if they wanted Assassination Classroom relationships or the following relationships in the fandoms in the disambiguation:
Albedo/Dilu (Genshin Impact) Albedo/Kaeya (Genshin Impact) Gallagher/Sunday/Misha (Honkai: Star Rail) Jiaoqiu/Jing Yuan (Honkai: Star Rail)
2. Li Family Gen (Perfect Match): Nominator(s), did you mean to nominate a gen relationship between members of the Li family? If so, would you accept Li Family Member & Li Family Member(s)?
3. Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli and Peggy Carter/Dottie Underwood have been nominated and approved under Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nominator(s), these ships could also go under Agent Carter (TV). Do you want to leave them in MCU or move them to Agent Carter (TV)?
4. I have nominations for both Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X Series. Nominator(s), is it fine to combine these under Final Fantasy X Series, or do the two tags need to remain separate?
5. I have DCU nominations for:
Barry Allen/Leonard Snart Clark Kent/Lex Luthor Lena Luthor/Kara Zor-El Leonard Snart & Lisa Snart Mick Rory & Leonard Snart & Lisa Snart Mick Rory/Caitlin Snow Sara Lance & Leonard Snart
Nominator(s), could you please clarify which of these should be in DC’s Arrowverse, which should be in DC Extended Universe, which should be in DC Comics, Crossover Fandom, etc.? These are usually approved under those subfandoms.
Notes
Evita (Rent) & Allison (Rent) —> approved as Evita & Allison Grey (Rent). Let me know here if this is another Allison.
Riri Williams & Michelle Jones —> approved under Marvel Cinematic Universe as a crossover ship between two MCU properties.
Amilyn Holdo (SWST/Mon Mothma (SWOT) —> approved under Star Wars - All Media Types as a crossover ship between two SW properties.
Anthony DiNozzo/Spencer Reid —> approved as Anthony DiNozzo (NCIS)/Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds). (Crossover nominations must contain the fandoms for the characters in the disambiguations.)
Anthony DiNozzo/Ian Edgerton —> approved as Anthony DiNozzo (NCIS)/Ian Edgerton (Numb3rs). (Crossover nominations must contain the fandoms for the characters in the disambiguations.)
Danny Mahealani/Sebastian Smythe —> approved as Danny Mahealani (Teen Wolf)/Sebastian Smythe (Glee). (Crossover nominations must contain the fandoms for the characters in the disambiguations.)
Aqua | Azura/Lucina (FEA) and My Unit | Kamui | Corrin/My Unit | Robin (FEA) moved to Crossover Fandom, with Aqua | Azura and Corrin tagged as FE: Fates.
The Agent | Hero of Daggerfall/Uriel Septim VII (Oblivion) —> moved to Crossover Fandom, with The Agent | Hero of Daggerfalll tagged as appearing in Daggerfall.
1. You have the summer and plenty of money to travel abroad. Where all would you go?
2. What foods would you be sure you got to eat?
3. What landmarks would you be sure you got to see?
4. What airline would you use?
5. Would your knowledge of other languages influence where you went? (i.e., would you be more likely to go to France if you spoke French?)
Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.
If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!
In 2020, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) made a commitment to our users, members, and volunteers that we would work towards making our organization and our projects more welcoming and inclusive to fans of color, and preventing and combating racist harassment on our platforms.
We provided an update on this work in 2023, acknowledging that progress had not been as fast as we had hoped, sharing details of the changes that had been made by that point, and laying out the road ahead.
Today we are delighted to share that we have fulfilled the last of the promises we made to you back in 2020. While we celebrate the hard work and dedication to improvement that has taken us to this point, we also regret that it has taken us five years to get here. We are sincerely grateful for all the support we've received from our users, members, and volunteers to complete this work, and we apologize that it has taken this long to do so.
This post lays out both the progress we've made and the specific ways our 2020 promises have been fulfilled, as well as what is coming next and how we will ensure that our work doesn't stop here.
What We've Done
Since our update in 2023, we have completed the following goals to help protect our users and volunteers against harassment:
Simplified the language and removed redundancies throughout the TOS in order to improve readability for all users, including those who may have English as an Additional Language (EAL);
Generalized the Abuse Policy to provide the AO3 Policy & Abuse committee (PAC) with greater flexibility to determine how to address harassment and other TOS violations; and
Restarted the creation of "No Fandom" canonical additional tags to allow users to more easily filter in and filter out for concepts as they want. Read more about new canonicals in the Tag Wrangling news posts.
The Diversity Consultant Research Officer completed their internal review, engaged with contractors, and made a culture audit firm recommendation to the OTW Board in 2023.
Following that recommendation, the OTW contracted with an audit firm and underwent a months-long organizational culture audit that included interviews with volunteers at every level of the organization and in every committee.
The Board, working with the firm and OTW volunteers from several committees, created an Organizational Culture Roadmap of items that need to be addressed and changed to promote a healthier and safer OTW for all our volunteers.
To ensure the completion of these goals, we established the OTW Culture Roadmap Workgroup. This is an independent body from the Board so that this work is unaffected by Board turnover. This work remains ongoing and will continue long beyond this update.
Made multiple changes to the procedures of public Board meetings and Board communications generally, to improve transparency regarding Board work and OTW progress. This includes:
Implemented a new moderation system for public Board meetings, as of the November 2023 public meeting, allowing the Board to address questions raised during public meetings; since the July 2024 public meeting, started addressing questions submitted asynchronously from people who can’t attend the meeting live.
Implemented professional customer relationship management tools for Board work and Board email/communication.
Released bi-weekly internal updates regarding Board and BAT work to OTW volunteers.
Created two new committees and two new subcommittees to better support the completion of these goals and our long-term sustainability as an organization:
Completed and published a Whistleblower Protection Policy to outline and enshrine the protections for people who make reports about misconduct in the OTW.
What We're Doing
We know that creating a safer environment for our users and volunteers is an ongoing responsibility, and we remain deeply committed to addressing harassment with both urgency and care. While the steps outlined in our 2020 statement marked an important beginning, we recognise that true progress requires continuous effort beyond fulfilling those initial commitments. We are dedicated to building on that foundation with transparency, accountability, and compassion.
We are committed to and already continuing to work beyond our 2020 promises to ensure that this work does not end here. Some examples of our ongoing commitment include:
Completing the ongoing project to review the OTW Code of Conduct in full, bringing it into line with industry standards and updating it in collaboration with volunteer feedback;
Supporting the ongoing development and growth of the Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution subcommittee;
Making AO3 more accessible for EAL users through our ongoing internationalization efforts. We've recently finished preparing all emails for translation and are continuing to work on other parts of the site.
Moving Forward
Looking forward to the future, we want to maintain our progress in this area and continue to improve transparency about changes within the OTW. We will make efforts to share information about updates like these in the monthly newsletter and our quarterly public Board meetings on Discord (you can also find updates from our quarterly meetings in our meeting minutes).
We appreciate your ongoing support and patience throughout these efforts, and we offer our sincerest apologies for the extended time required to fulfill our promises. Although progress has been slower than anticipated, we are very excited to share that our major goals are now complete and we are committed to continuing improvement into the future.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
And very heavy on the dudes. I'm not sure if women don't go into this sort of thing, or if they're just too classy when they do it, and thus don't get onto the playlist. Though I guess it would be strange for lesbians to sing an ode to Jingle Bell COCK. (Emphasis all theirs, and totally unnecessary. We know where the song was going.)
Anyway, in honor of this, I'm posting three belated Christmas videos. The last is Boynton and totally SFW.
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